Quaddle Of Three
by JustVilda Potter
Summary: After a lost soccer game, Dawn disappears in the middle of the night. Using clues, witness reports, and conclusions the other Harpers have to find out what happened to her, and where she is.
1. The Soccer Loss

**Hello everyone, and welcome to the third story I'm writing on here. In not even a month, I've written two ****stories. And I can't get enough of writing about NRDD, so here's another story for everyone! Yaaay**

**This is an alternate universe story, so it could in no way actually happen during the series**

* * *

"You got this Dawn!", Anne shouted over the soccer field.

It was the day of the most important game of the tournament for The Buffalos. They were up against The War Pigs, and this competition was crucial. The winner of the season would be revealed. The Buffalos had to get this win, or it would be the 29th year in a row Edgewood lots a champion ship.  
That was not an option.

Dawn was tired. Like, _really_ tired. She had barely slept anything the night before. There wasn't any reason for her not to sleep. She wasn't even nervous about the game. It was just a really inconvenient time for insomnia.

Being a good goalkeeper was close to impossible when you were that tired. Dawn had already let in three goals.

"Go sweetie!" Anne waved her big foam finger around. As usual, she had dragged Tom and the boys over there to watch Dawn. She had been doing it since they were seven, and she wasn't planning to stop.

The boys sat beside her and Tom, yawning, groaning, and playing on their phones. They hated doing this _every_ weekend.

"How much longer do we have to stay here?" Dicky looked up at Anne.

Anne looked disappointed, and sighed.

"In five minutes, when the game is over" She went back to cheering for Dawn. "You can take this one!"

Nelly kicked the ball, right at the goal Dawn was standing in. Dawn was clearly not prepared. She just flinched as the ball flew in right next to her.

Anne bit her tongue, and turned her eyebrows down.

"Next time, Dawn!"

* * *

That next time turned out to not even come. Five minutes later the judge blew his whistle, and the game ended at 4-1, to the War Pigs fortune.

All of the blue clothed girls started cheering and jumping. They bounced into a team hug, celebrating their victory. The Buffalos in red jerseys all went up to Dawn, seemingly asking her what happened to her.

The other Harper's were at a quick pace getting down from the seats, and onto the field with Dawn. Tom and Anne ran the last bit, leaving the boys behind (they didn't care enough to run). The other soccer players moved out of the way, revealing Dawn, who was pacing in a little circle, tears in her eyes.

"Sweetie, are you okay?" Anne stopped Dawn's pacing, by placing her hands on Dawn's shoulder.

"No!" Dawn pushed Anne's hands off. "I ruined the game for my whole team... I made us lose."

"How? What happened? Tom lifted Dawn's chin, which was almost touching her chest.

"Nothing. The game was so boring, I can't even remember a second," the boys had caught up, Nicky going in front.

Anne gave him a deadly look, and whispered:

"Nicky, you are not helping.."

She turned back to Dawn, who was pacing again.

"It's my fault we lost!"

"No, it's not sweetie."

"Yes it is! I was so tired I couldn't do anything."

"It's not your fault that you were tired. You just got no sleep, and that doesn't make you the worst."

There was a sudden change in Dawn's emotions. She smiled, and nodded.

"Yeah... You're right. _I_ couldn't help it."

Tom patted her on the back.

"That's my girl."

A short, sweet silence followed.

"Can we go home now?"

Anne sighed.

"Yes, Ricky."

And so the Harper's left the soccer field.

* * *

A couple of hours later, Dawn was still sad about the loss, but she wasn't blaming herself for it. At least she wasn't saying out loud it was her fault.

She sat in her bed, pen in hand, intensively pouring her thoughts into her diary. Although she had told her parents it wasn't her fault, she still believed so.

Like, if she had been peppy and lively at the game, she wouldn't have let those goals in, and their team would have won with 1-0. It was _clearly_ her fault, and the others had told her it wasn't just to make her happy.

Dawn didn't want to talk to anyone right now. Not Anne, not Tom, not the Icky's, not anyone else. She just needed a break from them for a while, then everything would be fine.

* * *

**Very short first chapter to be me, but that's because I wanted to save the real events until chapter 2.**

**Hope ya liked it!**


	2. The Disappearance

The first thing Ricky noticed when he woke up in his bed was how dark the room was. He usually never woke up during the night, so it had to be morning. It was just... a really dark morning.

Ricky looked to his right. Nicky was still in his bed, fast asleep. Weird... Nicky was always the first one up. Ricky turned his head to the left instead. He grabbed his phone off the bedside table, and turned it on.

The bright light from the screen made him squint his eyes. Everything went blurry, but he could still make out the 02:47. He _did_ wake up during the night.

There was a shuffling noise coming from somewhere. What was that? After thirty seconds of non-stop sounds, Ricky concluded that it came from Dawn's room.

Guess she was awake too. Maybe it was a full moon night...

Ricky dropped those thoughts, and calmly went back to sleep.

* * *

"Nicky! Ricky! Dicky! Dawn! Breakfast!" Anne put the last crust-free sandwich on the table in front of Nicky's chair.

Fast footsteps and arguing was heard a few seconds later, as the boys ran down the stairs. Ricky was the first in, followed by Nicky, and lastly Dicky.

"I'm telling you, the music won't go upside down if you wear your headphones upside down!" Ricky sat down in his chair. "Why would you even want to wear your headphones upside down!?"

Dicky gave Ricky a serious look.

"Because I don't want to look basic."

"Boys, where's Dawn?"

All three boys looked at Anne. They then looked around each other, like they hadn't even noticed Dawn wasn't in there. After noticing Dawn was in fact not there, they all shrugged. Anne sighed.

"Dicky, go and get her."

Dicky froze for a second, before quickly sitting down in his chair, an squinting his eyes.

"No..."

"Then, Nicky, you go get Dawn."

Nicky gave Anne an annoyed face.

"Why me?"

"Because you're the only one standing up."

Nicky snorted irritably, and turned around without saying a word. He ran through the living room, up the stairs, and through the corridor. First when he reached Dawn's door, he slowed down. Totally ignoring the 'No boys' sign, he swung the door open.

"Daaawn, it's breakfast time."

Nicky's whole annoyed feeling disappeared when he saw that Dawn wasn't in the room. Not in her bed, not in the beanbag, nor by the desk. Nicky took a last look around, in case Dawn was hiding. She wasn't.

Well, she was probably in the bathroom. That would explain her absence from her room, and her not coming to breakfast. Nicky sighed deeply and walked up the corridor. The bathroom door was closed, so Dawn was obviously in there. Nicky knocked on the door.

"Dawn! It's breakfast time!"

No answer. Nicky knocked again.

"Dawn!"

He noticed the door wasn't locked, and so he opened it. At a first glance, Dawn wasn't seen in there. But the shower curtain was closed, covering the bathtub. Nicky rolled his eyes, and walked over there.

"_Very_ funny-" Nicky swung the curtain open. "Dawn?"

Dawn wasn't there either. Nicky was slowly starting to get annoyed again while walking through the upstairs corridor.

"Dawn, just come down to breakfast!"

He sprinted down the stairs and through the living room.

"Where's Dawn?", Anne immediately asked when Nicky entered the kitchen.

"That's the thing," Nicky sat down. "I don't know."

Anne looked confused.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I have no idea where she is. She's hiding or something."

"Then we have to find her. Get up boys."

Nicky, Ricky and Dicky groaned with their mouths full of bread and cheese. Very unwillingly, they stood up from their chairs and followed Anne into the living room.

* * *

"Found anything?"

Ricky, Dicky and Nicky met up on the stairs.

"Nope."

"You?"

Ricky shook his head.

"Nothing. Don't you think she would have like... gotten bored by now?"

"She should have. I didn't even get to drink strawberry juice for breakfast," Nicky hissed.

"I've gotten bored by now," Dicky sat down on the step he was on.

Anne walked out of the kitchen. She was on her phone, talking to someone.

"Last night at nine... Okay, we'll check the neighborhood."

The boys watched Anne hang up. She looked up at them on the stairs.

"I'm going over to the neighbors."

"Kay."

"Have fun."

"Oh no, you're going too."

When Anne said that, the boys stood up, shocked.

"Why!?" Ricky ran down to his mom.

"Because we need to get the whole neighborhood to help search for Dawn. At least until the police get here."

Slowly, the Icky's annoyed shocked faces turned to worry.

"The-... the police?", Nicky asked, voice shaking.

Anne nodded.

"I called them, since Dawn doesn't seem to be anywhere. Now we're going to search through the neighborhood."

The boys looked at each other. They were now worried too. Anne continued.

"One of you are going to Mae's to see if she's there, and the other two will get some neighbors to help."

"I'm on Mae duty!" Nicky ran out the door before anyone got the chance to protest.

Anne turned to the other two.

"You're going to Syd's, and you're going to the Hickmans."

"On it", the boys replied at the same time.

The three of them went outside, and found Tom standing there. Without even saying a word, Ricky turned left for the Hickman's, and Dicky went over to Syd's house. He hadn't talked to her since the tree house accident, and yet here he was, knocking on her door.

After six knocks and a minute of waiting, Syd opened the door. She had her pajamas on, and her hair was a mess. It was clear she had not been expecting visitors. She sighed.

"What are you doing here?"

"Look, I don't want to be here. But we need your help. Dawn's gone."

Syd turned her eyebrows down in confusion.

"Gone?"

"She's not anywhere in the house, and we need to find her."

Syd started to look concerned.

"I... I'll go, and like... get my parents to help," she pointed to the inside of the house.

"Sounds good."

As Syd closed the door, Dicky started walking over to the next neighbor.

* * *

It had been an hour since Dawn wasn't at breakfast. She hadn't been at Mae's, or anyone else's house either. Along with their neighbors, The other Harper's had searched through the entire neighborhood.

The police arrived quickly, and they helped to search through the entire city, to no success. Dawn wasn't anywhere. The police told them that they would continue searching on their own, and that Dawn would probably be home in 24 hours.

So the Harper's had gone home. There wasn't really much else to do than put the matter into the hands of the police. They would still get to know everything they found that seemed suspicious or interesting.

Five of six members of the family (not counting Squishy Paws) were in the kitchen. They were all worried sick, hoping with all they got that Dawn was okay. Anne was even too shaken up to cook a proper meal, so Nicky had taken care of that. He had decided that they were having chicken noodle soup and a baguette.

"I just hope she's not kidnapped," Anne had tears all over her face.

Tom put his hand on hers, and slowly leaned in a little.

"Don't worry. She's probably okay. The police will find her, and arrest that kidnapper."

"Yeah, and that'll happen soon... right?" Dicky sounded sure, but he definitely didn't look like it.

Squishy Paws whimpered. Tom let go of Anne's hand and started petting the dog's head instead.

"You don't worry either."

"Hey, has anyone seen the baguette?", Nicky suddenly asked.

He seemed to be looking for something around the bread basket.

"No. Is it gone?" Anne leaned out on her chair to see more of the kitchen.

Nicky nodded.

"I'm one hundred percent sure I left it in here by my-..." he stopped abruptly, and searched for words. "-bread rolls."

He lied about the bread rolls, but he couldn't tell the others his money was there. Tom pointed it out.

"There _are_ no bread rolls there."

"I... I usually keep them there," Nicky quickly closed the bread box. "Now back to the point; where is my baguette?"

Ricky came in through the kitchen door. He looked concerned.

"I was just in Dawn's room, and I noticed something weird."

The others listened in.

"There were no signs of a break in at all."

Anne shrugged.

"Could've come from the front door, or the _unlocked garage,_" she gave Tom a deadly look.

Ricky shook his head.

"That's not it. Her backpack was gone, and so was her favorite shirt, and those light blue tights."

* * *

**Tomorrow, I don't think there will be an update. Why? Because tomorrow's ****Easter!**

**I'm going to my grandparents house for Easter, and so I won't be able to update.**

**Maybe I won't update on Sunday ****either, 'cause it's my cousin's birthday, and we're going to his house. But I promise there will be an update on Monday!**


	3. Highway 119

After further investigation of Dawn's room, the Harper's found that not only her backpack and clothes were missing. A notebook and a pink glitter-pen couldn't be found either. Why would a kidnapper take a backpack, clothes, pen and paper, and a baguette? It was all just so weird.

Dawn hadn't come back the next morning. The police was wrong. She wasn't back in 24 hours. They had sent out a missing person alert, and posters were hung up around town. This was serious now. It wasn't just; Dawn's not in her bed, and we can't find her. It was; Dawn's gone missing, and no one can find her.

Nicky, Ricky and Dicky sat on the couch. In just a minute they were leaving for school. It wasn't the very first time they went without Dawn, but it felt like it. Usually, they would absolutely _love_ going there without Dawn. But now it was the worst feeling ever. Tom and Anne walked down the stairs.

"Boys, we're leaving," Anne sighed, as she went over to the door

Tom caught up with her and opened it. Without saying a word, Nicky, Ricky and Dicky stood up, dragged their feet over to their parents and grabbed their backpacks. Neither Tom nor Anne broke the silence. They just closed the door, and followed their sons to the car.

* * *

One thing that felt very relieving to the boys was that all their friends already knew about Dawn's disappearance. They didn't have to explain anything.

Why they were constantly looking down, why they occasionally got tears in their eyes, or why they didn't want to talk.

Everyone left them to themselves, and didn't disturb them. A lot of their friends did come to comfort them though, which felt great in their situation.

When lunch came around, the three quads sat around their usual five chair table. They didn't feel like eating, even though Anne packed their favorite comfort foods. None of them felt hungry. They could feel their stomach's rumbling, but their heads told them they didn't want to eat.

Dicky was just sliding a piece of pepperoni around on his pizza slice. Nicky stirred his special Nicky-spoon around in his soup, and Ricky just poked his lasagna. Mae came over to them, and put her tray of school restaurant food on the table.

"Are you okay, guys?"

Ricky shook his head.

"No", Dicky mumbled.

"You can go sit with Miles, Avery and Natlee if you want to" Nicky pointed to a place behind him with his spoon.

"I don't want to. I'd rather sit where I always sit."

"Even when Dawn's not here?" Ricky looked down at the empty seat on his left.

Mae nodded, looking at the same place.

"I'm not only here for Dawn. You guys are my friends too."

For the first time in a while, Nicky, Ricky and Dicky smiled slightly. A couple of seconds went by before someone spoke.

"Thanks, Mae," Nicky looked up from his soup.

He got a sudden feeling that maybe he did want to eat. There was no point in starving himself because Dawn was gone. He filled the spoon up, and put it in his mouth. Ricky and Dicky looked at each other, then Nicky. They then took a bite of their food too.

Smiling at each other and Mae, they ate their food. The boys felt their eyes tearing up again. But this time not only with sadness over Dawn. They were happy, and grateful for Mae.

* * *

"Enjoy your skiing trip," Anne forced a smile as a couple who just bought skiing things left the store.

She had been forcing that smile all day, for every single costumer. It felt horrible. Smiling when her daughter was missing felt so wrong. Even though smiling is a normal thing, that everyone does.

Anne turned around. There were no costumers in sight coming towards the counter, so she was just going to organize some tennis balls. They were in a mess on the shelf behind her, and it didn't look welcoming at all.

As Anne picked the thin tube up, and started shoving tennis balls down it, she didn't notice who walked into the store. She put the last lime green ball into the container. Then she heard footsteps coming towards the counter. She sighed, and put on the fake smile.

"Welcome to Tom's Get Sporty, how can I-" It wasn't just a normal costumer waiting there when she turned around.

Two polices stood there. A red haired woman, and a bald man. Anne recognized them immediately. They were Cassidy and Jonathan, the cops working on Dawn's case. They looked concerned, and so Anne's forced smile vanished. She hastily leaned onto the counter.

"Any news? Anything? Has she been found? Do you know where she is?"

"Yes. Yes. No. And no," Jonathan replied. "We've got witness reports."

Anne felt both relief and horror spread through her.

"Where has she been seen, and by who?"

Cassidy took over.

"We've gotten twelve reports from car and truck drivers."

Now that was just weird. Out of all the people who could have seen her it was people driving. Cassidy seemed to notice Anne's confused face.

"Several drivers have reported seeing a young girl fitting the description walking down state highway 119"

"But... that's leaving Boulder," Anne's heartbeat sped up. "How did they explain the girl?"

"Only a few of them said more than '_fits the description_', but the ones who did explain her look said 'long, dark blonde, curly hair, light blue tights, purple shirt, and a pink backpack with something written on the back'"

Jonathan's description perfectly fit Dawn. Anne nodded, feeling her eyes watering.

"One car driver said he pulled up to her and asked if she was okay, and if she needed a ride. He said she had just flinched, and ran into the forest on the side of the road"

That was surely strange. If Dawn had been kidnapped, how would she have walked down the highway on her own. Unless she in fact had _not_ been kidnapped...

If she had actually ran away...

* * *

**Surprise! There was a chapter today. I thought there would be no update this weekend, but I managed to fit it in my schedule!**

**Also...**

**Before I end this chapter I just want to say something.**

**I want to thank a special person on here. A person who has left reviews on almost every single chapter of all my stories. She has been so supportive, and I'm endlessly thankful to her.**

**This person is of course; HollyHook**

**Her reviews light up my day, and I can't explain how much I love reading them.**

**Thank you, Holly!**


	4. Pink Pen, Green Paper

**Before this chapter starts, this was asked in a review, so here's the answer: This story takes place in season 3 before the quads leave Edgewood School**

* * *

The Harper boys walked out of the school building in silence. They didn't feel like talking, nor did they have anything good to talk about. They were just going back to a Dawn-less house.

The school bus was nowhere in sight, so the three of them just sat down on a bench. None of them wanted to go home. Being at the house felt even worse than being at school. Dawn was always home when they were, so her not being was just weird. It showed how unusual everything was at the moment.

"Why are they here?"

Dicky and Ricky looked up when Nicky spoke. He was pointing to the left, towards the end of the road. The family's black minivan was at a fast rate coming towards the school.

"But it's school bus Monday," Dicky sounded confused. "They only pick us up on Wednesdays and Fridays."

Tom pulled up the minivan by the bench that Nicky, Ricky and Dicky were sitting on. Anne quickly rolled down the window.

"Boys, get in. We're going to highway 119."

Hearing her tone of voice, the boys didn't dare to do anything than hurry into the backseat. They fastened their seat belts, and Tom started driving again.

"Okay, what's going on? And why aren't we going home?" Ricky's heartbeat sped up.

Both Tom and Anne looked worried.

"We've gotten witness reports of Dawn being seen by highway 119," Tom didn't take his eyes off the road.

The boys all gave each other a quick hopeful look. Dawn could be just minutes away from them. They let their backpacks fall to the minivan floor.

* * *

"Right by the end of the big field," Tom pulled over, and stopped the car. "This was where she was seen running into the forest."

He stepped out of the minivan, followed by his wife and sons. Four or five police cars were parked in front of them, and a couple of polices stood by the beginning of the forest. Anne took the lead as Tom locked the car.

"We're helping the police search through the forest," she grabbed Ricky by his arm an pulled him a little closer.

Half a second later she put her arms around Nicky and Dicky's necks, pulling them to her too. Like she was worried they would suddenly run away like Dawn.

Tom caught up with them when they reached Cassidy.

"Have you found anything?"

Cassidy shook her head.

"Nothing. We've been here for an hour, but we still got nothing."

"Nothing? Not a clue? Not a sign? Not even a piece of fabric or something?" Anne's breath was fast and irregular.

Cassidy slowly shook her head.

"Not a thing."

"Then what do we do?"

"We continue searching through the forest. You take the west part, we already got the others covered."

"O-... kay."

Tom grabbed Anne by her shoulder, and led the five Harper's where Cassidy pointed.

* * *

Dicky kicked a fallen branch. They couldn't find anything anywhere. Ten meters away from him, Nicky was ruffling through a blueberry patch. Another few meters out, Ricky was thoroughly inspecting trees.

Dicky's hope for finding anything was dropping at a fast rate. They had been rummaging through trees, bushes and grass for more than an hour, to no luck.

"You guys got anything?"

Nicky and Ricky looked up, and shook their heads.

"Nope."

"No. You?"

"Nope. This forest is worthless."

"It's like she wasn't even here," Ricky sighed, and sat down on a stump.

Nicky turned his head from the blueberries.

"But she was seen running in here."

"Yes. 36 hours ago she was."

All of them looked down. Just like Ricky said, it had been a long time. A lot could have happened in the last one and a half day. Nicky looked up again.

"But there has to be some kind of sign she was here at least. Right...?"

The other two seemed like they didn't know the answer, although Ricky gave some type of reply

"I thought there would be."

A couple of seconds of silence paused.

"I hoped we would find that missing baguette. I'm really hungry," Dicky commented.

"AAAAAAAAAAH!" Nicky screamed.

He stood up from the blueberries, and backed away in fright. Ricky and Dicky quickly stopped what they were doing, and sprinted over there. Ricky got there first.

"What happened? Did you find anything?"

Nicky stared at the blueberry patch, eyes popping, and body shaking. His mouth opened, and closed, and opened, and closed, but no words came out. Until...

"Spider."

Ricky and Dicky widened their eyes too when they saw the little eight-legged creature on a leaf.

"Mom!"

"What, Nicky!?" Anne came running towards them, followed by Tom a few meters behind her. "Did you find anything?"

She stopped when she saw the boys faces, staring at the ground. There was nothing she could do but sigh.

"Oh. Is there a _spider_ stopping you from finding Dawn?"

Nicky, Ricky and Dicky all nodded. Without uttering another word, Anne took four steps forward to kill the "_horrible monster_". But when she reached it, her facial expression changed drastically. She looked shocked, like she just realized something.

"What's this?"

She crouched down by the spider. It was first then the boys and Tom also noticed it. The spider was chilling on top of a green post-it-note. Anne gave the spider a light blow, and it flew right away from the note. She picked the green piece of paper up.

When she stood up, she turned the not towards the others. The glittery pink letters from Dawn's vanished pen was all that was on the paper, and it spelled nothing but three small words:

_5th of March_

* * *

**I've been noticing something weird with my PM's, cause I can't seem to receive or send. So if anyone's sent a PM, and I've not answered, it's because of that.**

**I really want to PM and talk to people, but so far I've been unable to.**

**March 20th update: In case anyone's wondering, my PM's are working fine now! I can receive and send without any problem!**


	5. After Empty Weeks

Time moved slowly, but at the same time faster than ever. Days went by like seconds, and suddenly it had been a week since they found the note in the forest.

They still had no clue what Dawn meant with '_5th of March_'. Neither the Harper's nor the police. It was all just another mystery added to the disappearance. First, Dawn vanished, then there was the witness reports seeing her by the highway, and now the note.

During that first week of her disappearing, they had thought of almost everything that could have related to the fifth of March in any way. Events, crimes, other disappearances, anything.

"I'm just so confused," Ricky buried his face in his hands.

"Out of all the things she could have written, she chose to write a date," Nicky fumbled around with a fork.

"I can't even figure out if she wants to come home or not."

Tom, Anne and Dicky walked into the kitchen.

"What are you talking about boys?" Anne pulled out a chair, and sat down.

Ricky sighed.

"The fifth of March."

Anne slowly nodded to herself, while Dicky and Tom sat down in their chairs. All of them were quiet for a few seconds.

"The police are checking if any big historical events happened on the fifth of March, and they asked us to see if any family things have," Tom glanced from one side of the table, to the other. "So do we know anything about the fifth of March?"

The family thought for a minute.

"In fifth grade, we had our talent show on the fifth of March," Nicky suggested.

"And how would that lead to Dawn running away?"

Nicky looked down again when Ricky asked that. Then Dicky looked up instead.

"I got my first girlfriend on the fifth of March!"

Nicky and Ricky slowly turned their heads towards him.

"We were five."

"She broke up with you two hours later. And why would that be important to Dawn?"

Dicky turned his eyebrows down.

"If I remember things correctly, Dawn had a horrible flu once on the fifth of March."

"Yeah, that's right, Anne."

Nicky interrupted his parents.

"And why would she write the date of that down when she's run away?"

Tom and Anne sighed, and sat back. It seemed hopeless. The fifth of March was not a special date at all.

* * *

Another week passed in no time. Two weeks had gone by without Dawn. It felt like two years, while it also felt like two days.

Nicky, Ricky and Dicky were in the hallway. They weren't sure why, but they just didn't feel like being anywhere in the house. Every single one of the rooms just reminded them too much of the fact that they were alone, and had been for fourteen days.

"What do we do now?" Ricky sat on the floor, leaning on the door to the boys room.

Nicky stood by Dawn's door, picking off tiny pieces of the 'No boys allowed' sign, and throwing them on the floor. Dicky sat in one of the armchairs at the end of the hall.

"We do nothing."

"That won't get us anywhere."

Dicky tilted his head forward, just to give him an annoyed look.

"Has anything else gotten us anywhere?"

Nicky and Ricky had to shake their heads at that. For the past couple of weeks they had been trying anything and everything, and still gotten nowhere. But they couldn't just give up. Then they would never see Dawn again.

"The worst thing is that she didn't even tell us anything," Nicky threw a tiny piece of yellow paper on the floor.

Ricky nodded.

"If she had just told us what she was thinking, we could have helped her."

"She wouldn't be gone," Dicky leaned his elbow on the armrest, and put his head on his hand.

Nicky got a sudden look on his face. His eyes widened, and he smiled.

"What she was _thinking_!" he turned to his brothers, who watched him with confused faces. "Her diary!"

They lit up too, and got up from their sitting positions. Nicky flung the door open, and they raced in.

"Now where does she keep it?" Ricky looked around. "Nicky, desk. Dicky, dresser. I'll check the bed."

The boys spread through the little room, and started rummaging through the drawers, blankets and pillows. The diary didn't seem to be anywhere, until...

"Here it is!" Dicky pulled something out of the top drawer of the dresser. The other two looked up, and said in unison:

"You found the diary?"

Dicky shook his head.

"No. I found this grilled cheese I left here three weeks ago!" he smiled and took a bite out of the moldy sandwich.

Half a second later, Dicky frowned and that bite was in a mushy pile on the floor. Dicky threw the sandwich onto the pile. Nicky and Ricky looked at it with disgusted faces.

"From now on, no one interrupts, _unless _he found the diary," Ricky turned back to Dawn's bed, but had to look behind him again just a second later.

"I found it!" Nicky pulled the pink book out of a drawer in Dawn's desk.

The three boys quickly sat down on Dawn's bed. Nicky riffled through the pages, and stopped when the pages turned blank. He turned back a page.

"Here's the last entry," he cleared his throat.

"_Dear diary. We lost the soccer game today. It was my fault. I was so tired I let in five goals. Both Clair and the coach asked what was up after the game. I'm 100% sure they were blaming the loss on me. I mean everyone else did totally amazing. We've always beaten the War Pigs in less important games, so we should have won again. But I ruined our chances._

_I don't want to talk to anybody right now. I barely want to see anyone. They'll just blame me, or make fun of me, I know it. At least Nicky, Ricky and Dicky will. They always do. But I'll have to see them, and everyone else tomorrow. Unless I run away or something..._

_That's it! I'll leave in the middle of the night, and come back a couple of days later, when I'm feeling better."_

Nicky almost dropped the book in his lap.

"She _did_ run away," Ricky took the book from Nicky. "But she wrote here that she would be back in a couple of days. So where is she?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out."

"Yeah, I know that, Dicky."

"Calm down, you two. We need to figure out why it's been a couple of weeks, and not days," Nicky reminded them.

"Boys, we're going to the police station," Tom was now standing in the doorway.

Nicky took the diary back from Ricky, and went over to Tom.

"Dad, we read in Dawn's diary that she ran away."

Tom slightly opened his mouth, and widened his eyes.

"Bring that to the police. They need to see that."

* * *

Cassidy lead the Harper's into a room at the police station. It was small, and the only pieces of furniture were a desk, some chairs and a bookshelf. Jonathan was already in there, waiting with a middle aged man. Jonathan looked at the family, and gestured to the chairs. They sat down.

"Why did you call us here?", Tom asked.

"We've found something. This is Jacob Robbins," Jonathan pointed to the man, who waved at them. "Jacob, why don't you tell them what you found."

The man nodded, and leaned his hands on the police's desk.

"You see, I live by the forest your daughter disappeared into," he had a Texan accent. "And I was out picking mushrooms, when I found that floating in the river."

Cassidy grabbed something from under the desk, and put it up on the top of it.

It was Dawn's pink backpack. It still had some wet spots on it, and it was ripped in some places. The Harper's looked at it in shock.

"We've searched through it, and this is what we could find," Jonathan nodded her head towards Cassidy. "Cass?"

Cassidy opened the backpack, and started taking out things.

"A piece of moldy baguette," she put a baguette piece, no bigger than a computer mouse, on the desk.

"A bandanna," a dark blue bandanna neither Tom, Anne nor the boys recognized.

"And this note," Cassidy put a blue post-it-note on the table.

Three glittery pink words were written on it.

_6th of_ _October_


	6. DAH 207

5th of March, 6th of October...

What did they mean? Did something important happen on those dates? Did Dawn have a special connection to just those days of the year? They weren't even close to either of them. It was early June!

It was all just too weird. Nothing added up. Dawn ran away, planning to come back in a couple of days, but weeks passed. The others found notes with dates on them, written with Dawn's pen and handwriting. She was seen running into the forest, but wasn't there anymore.

What did everything mean?

* * *

Nicky and Dicky sat in their English class. It was one of the most boring classes at the moment, seeing as all they did was discuss a book they read.

"So let's get to question three. How would you describe the main character" The teacher pointed to a drawn picture of the book's main character.

She threw a quick look over the room, seeing about seven or eight raised hands.

"Antonella."

Nicky lay his head on his crossed arms on the desk, as Antonella started explaining the character in an unnecessarily detailed way.

Couldn't this lesson just be over?

He glanced up at the clock, and felt a little better. In just two minutes they would end for the day. He hoped those couple of minutes would fly by as he put his head back. They surely did.

"Okay, class, pack up and stand behind your chairs."

In a couple of seconds Nicky completed the task, and so did Dicky. The teacher waited for everyone to be silent, before gesturing to the door. All at the same time, the students stared trying to get out first.

The Harper boys luckily sat pretty close to the door, and got out in about fourth and fifth.

"Should we go to the bus now?" Dicky asked.

Nicky nodded.

Ricky could catch up with them. They didn't have to wait for him inside, there was every reason they should go outside immediately. So they did.

A lot of people from their class were gathered around a lamp post when they got out.

"What's going on over there?" Nicky took a head start towards the crowd.

He reached it a couple of seconds before Dicky, just as people cleared up, complaining. A piece of paper was put up on the lamp post. Nicky turned his eyebrows down as he read it.

"_School bus has been cancelled today, as the three pm bus has a few flat tires. _Oh, come on!"

"Does this mean we have to walk home?"

"I think so."

Both Nicky and Dicky sighed.

"Should we wait now?"

"Dicky, we don't have to. Ricky's right there" Nicky pointed to the entrance to the school.

Ricky was walking towards them, looking confused.

"Where's the bus?"

"Not coming."

"Flat tires."

"Ugh!" Ricky squeezed the straps of his backpack.

There was a short silence as the boys just groaned and sighed. Dicky broke it.

"Can we go now?"

The other two nodded, and they started walking home.

* * *

It turned out walking home took a lot longer than the Harper boys would have thought. Taking the bus would usually take between five and ten minutes, and they had now been walking for twenty minutes.

"This is takin' _forever_!" Dicky groaned.

"I know!" Nicky leaned his head backwards and sighed.

"We're only five minutes away from home," Ricky looked down at his wristwatch. "I think."

"I have social studies homework. I'm not gonna have any time to do it!"

"Dicky, you wouldn't do it even if you had time."

"I know."

Ricky looked away in disappointment. Two things were wrong with Dicky's statement. One: He wouldn't do it anyway. Two: They only lost like fifteen minutes of their spare time.

He looked back.

"Nicky, what time is it?"

Nicky quickly swung his backpack off his back, and hastily opened it to check his phone.

"It's seventeen past three."

He thoroughly pulled the zipper together again, and swung it onto his back again. Something flew off the top of the backpack as a red car drove by them, way over the speed limit. The boys shouted some commands at the driver to "chill", "watch the speed limit" and "be careful". Then Ricky looked down at the ground and saw what had seemingly flown down from Nicky's backpack.

"Nicky, you dropped something."

Nicky quickly looked behind him, but ignored the piece of paper Ricky saw. He looked down behind him, and grinned.

"Thanks, Ricky," he crouched down and picked up a dotted paper with some notes on it.

Ricky looked at him, confused.

"No, I was talking about that. I didn't see it before," he pointed to a little piece of yellow paper laying on the edge of the sidewalk.

Nicky and Dicky looked down at it too. Both of them looked just as confused now.

"Weird," Dicky crouched down.

"We all must have missed it, 'cause I didn't see it either," Nicky slowly nodded to himself. "I didn't even know I had that."

Dicky picked the note up, and stood up again. He looked at the blank paper, and turned it over. A shocked look spread across his face, and he took a step backwards. Nicky and Ricky looked at him, confused.

"What does it say?" Nicky stepped forward.

Dicky swallowed, and slowly shook his head in disbelief. He turned the note around to his brothers. When they saw what was written on the paper, they immediately understood Dicky's reaction to it.

Three words were written on the paper with a glittery pink pen:

_3rd of_ July

* * *

Absolutely breathless, the Harper boys opened the door to their house. They had ran all the way home, just to show Tom and Anne the note.

"Mom!"

"Dad!"

They threw off their backpacks, and kicked off their outside shoes. There was no time to bother putting the inside shoes on.

"We're in the kitchen."

Nicky, Ricky and Dicky ran over to the other side of the living room. Ricky swung the pass door open, and the three boys leaned onto the sill.

In the kitchen wasn't exactly what they had expected though. Tom and Anne were in there, but they weren't alone. Cassidy and Jonathan stood in there with them.

"What's going on?" Nicky had calmed down.

Anne looked over at her sons. She was biting her lips, and so her front teeth's edges had turned into a pink-red tone from her lipstick.

"Dawn's been seen again."

The boys' jaws dropped, and they looked over to the other side of the kitchen table, where the polices were standing.

"We got a witness report saying she got into a red car," Jonathan explained.

The boys immediately threw out a flood of questions.

"When?"

"Where?"

"What was the registration number?"

"Yesterday at eleven pm."

"By Boulder City Forestry."

"D, A, H, two, zero, seven."

* * *

**Hey, I've been gone for a couple of days. But that's because of two reasons.**

**1: School's back, and so I don't have as much time.**

**2: I've been at a total lack of inspiration.**

**So now I'm back to a regular update schedule with between two and five chapters a week.**

**Hope you enjoyed this chapter, I'll be back with the next in a couple of days!**


	7. 2nd on the 4th

Tom followed the police car at a fast rate. The police in turn followed a woman in her car.

They were on their way to the Boulder City Forestry, where Dawn was seen getting into the car. The woman, who's name was Presley, took a right turn, leading the group to the edge of the forest.

Presley slowly parked, and got out of her car.

"This is the place."

Hands on her hips, she took a few steps forward. At that point, Cassidy had gotten out of the police car. She walked up to Presley, slowly nodding to herself, glancing around the ground.

"Then we have to see if there's any clues to where they went. We're searching the place."

Jonathan and the Harper's caught up.

"Presley, you go there. Harpers over there. Me and Cassidy will search this part."

The eight people split in different directions, off to look for anything and everything. They didn't even know what they were looking for.

Fabric from Dawn's clothes?

Footprints?

Any of the not found things missing from Dawn's room?

It turned out that it was one of those things.

* * *

After no time at all, half an hour had passed. The whole area around the spot was searched through, and it seemed like nothing was anywhere. Just leaves, sticks, stones and flowers. The most interesting thing they could find was an abandoned box of biscuits.

Ricky scanned the area with his eyes. It was the seventh time he did it, but he wasn't just going to give up on finding Dawn. Just as the other six times, nothing seemed interesting...

But what was that in the birch tree over there?

Something that stood out from the plain black and white. It was something pink and small.

"Guys, what is that?" he pointed it out to Nicky and Dicky.

They looked up at the tree, and spotted the pink spot. Nicky smoothly stood up and ran over to the tree.

"It's paper."

"Get it down."

Nicky gave Ricky a quick annoyed look.

"I can't reach up there."

Dicky sighed.

"This is what we need Dawn for."

"But Dicky, you're just as tall as her," Nicky frowned at him.

Dicky nodded to himself.

"Then we don't need her."

"You know what, just get the paper," they didn't have time for just talking, and Ricky knew that.

Dicky went over to the birch, and got up on his toes to reach the paper.

"Here. Cause you just _needed_ it so bad," he handed the note to Nicky.

Without hesitation, Nicky turned the note over.

_2nd of April_

* * *

**This chapter was very short, but I had no idea what to write about. So writing this chapter, I kind of at a loss of inspiration.**

**But the _next_ chapter will surely be amazing, cause I know exactly what to write about.**

**You might get an answer to the notes...**


	8. The Notes

"So... What do we have?"

The Harpers, Cassidy and Jonathan were gathered in the little room at the police station again. All the things they had found were laying on the desk in the middle.

"We've got a backpack floating in a river," Cassidy lifted the pink backpack.

"Witness reports of Dawn walking up state highway 119, running into the forest, and getting into a red car with the registration DAH 207."

"Have you found the car?" Anne interrupted.

Cassidy shook her head.

"Not even a trace of it" She got back to the things on the desk. "An unknown bandanna, which, if I have understood it right, belongs to none of you"

"That would be correct. Yes" Tom nodded, biting his tongue.

Cassidy slowly nodded too.

"Then of course," she sighed. "We got the most confusing part. The notes. One green, one blue, one yellow, one pink. All with dates written on them, with a pink glitter pen which belonged to Dawn."

The whole Harper family nodded. Jonathan took over.

"We've researched a little and we've found out some things that has happened on those dates."

He went over to the bookshelf and took out a file. It was labeled "Dawn Harper Disappearance".

"The biggest event on the fifth of March there was a school fire. Any way Dawn could know about that?"

Tom and Anne looked at each other, and shook their heads.

"Honestly, we didn't even know any event that took place on any of these dates."

Jonathan nodded, and scribbled something down on a paper from the file. He then continued.

"On October sixth there was a big plane crash. We found no major event on July third, and none on April second either."

"So now we're wondering if any family things happened on any of these dates," Cassidy looked at Tom and Anne.

To her disappointment, they shook her heads. She sighed.

"Then we're back at nothing again."

* * *

It had been a month. A month without Dawn. Nothing had been found out since they got the last note. No witness reports had dropped in, no more notes, no anything.

Nicky, Ricky and Dicky were in their room. The four different colored notes lay on Ricky's desk. They still had no idea what the dates meant, but the police had let them have them over the weekend, just to see if they came up with anything. Any forgotten family things, anything Dawn had written in her diary on that date, anything.

Nicky lay on his back in his bed, Dawn's diary in his hands. For the past couple of minutes he had been turning over page after page, looking at the dates of each entry.

Dawn had written around three diary entries on each page of the diary, and so Nicky had a _lot_ of dates to read through. None of them seemed to be one of the four dates she had written down.

After all, the chances were four out of 365.

Ricky sat on his desk chair. For just as long as Nicky had been looking through the diary, Ricky had been staring at the notes. He was trying to remember something, just anything that was related to the dates. Otherwise than a talent show, an illness and an unrelated plane crash, nothing particularly interesting seemed to have happened on any of them.

Dicky slowly paced forward and back in the room. From one side... to the other. He was impatiently waiting for his brothers to come up with something.

But they weren't. They got nothing for a long, long while.

"Why can't I just go down and get food?" Dicky placed the lower parts of his arms on Ricky's desk.

"Uuugh," Ricky sighed. "Because we need you here to tell you right away if something happens. And I just had something on the tip of my tongue!"

He jerked his head back to the notes, and started mumbling something to himself.

"I got it!" he looked up again. "Remember Esmé? Dawn's friend from kindergarten. Her birthday was on the third of July."

"And why would that matter to her now?" Nicky asked.

Ricky looked back down at the notes when he realized what Nicky said was true. It wouldn't matter. Dawn barely remembered Esmé herself, so why would her birthday stick.

Nicky reached the last few pages of the diary, and so far Dawn hadn't written anything on any of the four dates. He turned the page over, not hoping for much since the last page had been in late April.

The four entries on the very last page had the dates: April 29th, May 7th, May 18th, and of course the date of the disappearance, May 26th.

Nicky threw the pink book onto Ricky's bed.

"Not a single entry written on March fifth, October sixth, July third _or _April second."

He sighed, angrily.

"Wait a minute," he said when something suddenly came to his mind. He sat up on his bed.

Ricky looked over his shoulder.

"What?"

Nicky quickly got out of his bed, picked up Dawn's diary, and ran over to Ricky's desk. The sudden excitement made Dicky come over there too.

"Look here" Nicky opened a random page and pointed to the date. "Here she wrote _December eighth_, but on the notes she wrote things like... _Third of July._"

"And what do you think that means?" Ricky sounded confused, and Dicky surely looked the same.

Nicky looked like he had come up with something genius, and excitedly waved his fingers from the diary to the notes.

"Why would she write it differently? Why didn't she write March fifth, and April second?"

Ricky started to slowly nod.

"You do have a point," he turned to the notes. "Do we have any reasons she would write them differently?"

The three of them thought for a minute, to the point that they thought their brains would break. But they got nothing. At the same time, they all sighed. Dicky turned around and got back to pacing, and Nicky walked over to his bed again. He threw himself onto it.

"This is hopeless."

Ricky was about to agree when he suddenly got a look of realization on his face.

"Unless... the notes aren't literal."

Dicky just gave him a confused look, while Nicky slowly sat up in his bed.

"What?" Dicky's tone revealed he was even more confused than he looked.

"Literal means it's exactly what it seems like," Nicky talked to Dicky, but didn't take his eyes off Ricky's face.

Dicky smiled and nodded.

"Aaaaaaah. Then I'm still asking what," he said, before repeating; "_What_?"

Ricky quickly rolled his eyes before spinning his desk chair around to Dicky.

"I'm saying that what if the notes aren't actually dates. Maybe they could be some kind of... _code_ or something."

"What _code_?"

Ricky shrugged.

"I don't know."

He spun his desk chair back to the notes. Now that he had come up with the code idea, they seemed like four _whole new_ notes.

"Well, since it says _fifth of March_, it could mean like... the fifth _something_ of March."

"Like the fifth _what_?" Nicky had once again went over to Ricky's desk.

"The fifth week day maybe. Check last years calendar."

Nicky pulled out his phone, and had in a second searched up a calendar.

"It was a Saturday."

A minute later they had found that the other days were a Thursday, a Sunday and another Saturday. And with that they were back to nothing.

"Maybe it isn't weekdays?" Nicky had gone over to sit on Ricky's bed.

Ricky nodded. Yeah, Nicky was right. It couldn't just be over. They were just wrong about the weekday thing.

"Yeah, maybe it's the fifth... letter in the _word_ March."

"Could be. Try it."

Ricky went back to the notes. He counted through the letters, and the fifth letter was 'H'.

Continuing to interpret the notes, Ricky's face got more terrified for each note.

"What is it? What are the letters?" for the third time, Nicky got out of the bed.

"Fifth of March, H. Sixth of October, E. Third of July, L. Second of April, P."

As Ricky explained, Nicky's face got just as horrified.

The notes spelled out a word, that crawled under the boys' skin.

_HELP_


	9. Esther's Discovery

"She wrote _help_?" there was a big hint of panic in Anne's voice and her eyes were tearing up.

Ricky nodded, and intensively explained the note code again. Anne's mouth moved, but no words came out.

"But why would she write _help_?" Tom took the notes out of Ricky's hand. "This doesn't add up!"

"It can't be a coincidence! These notes and Presley seeing her getting into a car we don't know can't just be random," tears were starting to stream down Nicky's face too now.

"Then what does it mean. I thought you and the police said she ran away."

Ricky nodded.

"Us too!"

Anne quickly got her phone out of her pocket.

"I'm calling Cassidy."

She got up from her chair in the kitchen, and walked out into the living room, leaving the boys in to a quiet kitchen. They stopped talking for a minute, and so the only thing that could be heard were Nicky's sobbing and Tom riffling through the notes.

A couple of minutes went by very quickly, and Anne entered the room again. She was biting her under lip, and a few tears were falling down her cheeks.

"Cassidy and Jonathan have an idea of what could have happened."

The four boys in the family looked up at her, waiting for the answer. Anne swallowed, and sat down in her chair.

"They think she meant to just run away, but after a couple of days she...," she clapped her hand to her mouth to stop herself from sobbing. "She met the wrong person."

Dicky looked confused, while Ricky, Nicky and Tom gave each other worried glances.

"She... got kidnapped?" Tom's words were slurred.

Anne nodded, almost covering her whole face to cover her intensive crying.

"They think so."

Tears started streaming down the other's faces. They had been right from the start. Both of their theories were right. She ran away _and_ got kidnapped. At least that was what the police thought.

Suddenly Anne's phone rang again. Looking at the number, they saw it was the police again. Tom glanced up at Anne, who gestured for him to take it. He picked the phone up and pressed the little green phone button.

"Hello. Tom Harper here."

As the call went on, Tom looked more and more shocked and concerned.

After a while he put the phone down.

"Someone found more notes."

* * *

The person who had found the notes was a man named Dave. Dave had been walking his dog, Esther, when Esther suddenly _really_ wanted to turn left. Normally, they would go forward on that part of their 1 pm walk, but Esther insisted.

Dave had followed her into the Boulder City Forestry where she had immediately run over to some leaves on the ground. The leaves were put really tight together, and according to Dave, it looked a little strange.

Esther had started digging intensively, and the leaves turned out to be a hole in the ground, about one foot deep. It was filled with nothing but dry leaves... and _twelve_ more notes.

In just a few minutes, the Harpers, Cassidy and Jonathan were at the place with Dave and Esther. Dave showed them to the hole, and Jonathan picked them all up. He thoroughly looked through them.

"All of them are dates."

He was right. Each one of the notes were in the colors green, yellow, blue or pink, and written with the pink glitter pen.

"Let me see," Ricky went up to him and took the notes from his hands.

He did just the same thing as Jonathan, but looked at each note longer.

"E, R, P, P, I, N, S, D, O, T, N, I," after reading the letters out, Ricky threw his arms down, disappointed. "They're not in any order."

"Is that your main concern now?" Nicky had an '_are-you-serious_' tone to his voice. "What worries me more is why they're buried in a pit of leaves."

Ricky nodded now that he thought about that too. He turned to Jonathan and Cassidy. Cassidy shook her head.

"I have no idea either right now. But we'll go to the police station, and try to straighten this up."

* * *

Not ten minutes later, the seven people were back in the little room, all in their usual places. Cassidy and Jonathan behind the desk, on which the notes were laying. Nicky, Ricky, Dicky and Tom sat on four of the five chairs in front of the desk, and Anne paced forward and back behind them.

"Could it be like a _phrase_?" Cassidy mumbled to Jonathan, who shook his head.

"I'm thinking more that it's a place or an object."

They had written the letters the notes were decoded into on the back of the paper, and they were all laid out in front of the polices. They rearranged the letters over and over again, forming word after word. But whatever word they managed to make, some letters would be left out.

"A place like a road, or an address, or a public place?"

"I have no idea," Jonathan switched the T with one of the P's. "That doesn't make anything."

"Are we ever going to find Dawn?" Dicky asked worriedly.

"Of course we are," Tom tried to sound reassuring, but he knew himself that he wasn't sure.

He still nodded to himself, as a way to assure himself of the fact.

"We just need to find out what these notes spell out."

"How do we know we even have all of the notes we need for this message?" Nicky nervously played with his hands on his lap.

Ricky shook his head.

"We don't. We could have one half of a message just as well as we could have two."

Dicky sighed, impatient and worried.

"What's the point?"

Cassidy looked up when Dicky said the word 'point'.

"Point...," she quietly snapped her fingers while slowly nodding to herself. "It could be place. A _point._"

She quickly got back to the notes, and rearranged some of them, to spell 'point'.

"Jonathan. What places is there around Boulder that have _point_ in their name."

In a second Jonathan started tapping on the keyboard of his work laptop.

"Panorama Point, Realization Point, Point of Pines drive-"

"Stop," Cassidy rearranged the notes again. "I think we've got it."

The Harpers quickly stood up and looked down at the notes. They perfectly spelled out 'Point Pines Dr'. Dawn was at the Point of Pines Drive.


	10. The Point of Pines Peak

Tom had never been allowed to go at a speed as high as now. They were going miles faster than the speed limit, following the police closely. The fast rate felt thrilling for the whole family. Almost like a roller coaster ride.

Only that it wasn't ending in a thrill. It could end in finding Dawn, or it could end in nothing. They had no way of even knowing they read the notes right.

Those twelve notes could have spelled out something totally different, and the Harper's and the police were completely unaware of it.

After a while of driving, they finally took a turn into the Point of Pines drive. It was a long, long road, with houses and forests on the sides of the road. On such a long road you might think that it would be impossible to know exactly _where_ Dawn supposedly was going.

But it wasn't. Cassidy and Jonathan had a pretty good idea of where Dawn and her kidnapper would stop. A half hidden away glade close to a gas station. It would be a perfect place to stop the car with Dawn in it, while the kidnapper could go an get something from the gas station. Or for all the group of seven knew, it could be _kidnappers_.

They pulled over into the gas station parking lot, and waited... and waited... and waited.

It felt pointless, as there was a chance they were waiting for nothing. Maybe Dawn wasn't coming there. They could be there all day, to no success. Dawn could be somewhere else, hoping that they got her message, and thinking they were coming to get her.

But none of the eight people in this situation knew if their wishes would come true.

* * *

They had been standing there for a couple of hours, and nothing had happened. Jonathan had told the Harper's to just act like they were a normal family, who was either getting gas, or on a quick stop on a road trip.

Tom and Anne had decided on the road trip idea. No one else was at the gas station for more than ten minutes, so that way nobody got suspicious on why they were hanging out there. The only person Cassidy and Jonathan had told what was going on was the cashier.

And now they were all patiently waiting for everything or nothing.

Dicky came out of the gas station, opening a bag of sour patch kids. The others were still waiting outside. They couldn't miss anything. If all of them went just a stone's throw away from the place where they saw the glade, they could miss out on getting Dawn back.

"Want some?" Dicky held out the bag of sour candies to Nicky.

Nicky just shook his head, without even looking at what Dicky had in his hand. He had a horrible feeling in his stomach, making him not want to eat anything, in fear of his body rejecting it on the way down.

Dicky proceeded to ask Ricky the same question. He didn't get a direct response, Ricky just put his hand in and took out a blue candy. He felt like he needed some comfort food to help his process the situation.

Dicky went back to Nicky.

"Dude, you love sour patch kids."

Nicky shook his head.

"Not right now."

"Guys we're supposed to look like a normal family on a road trip," Ricky interrupted. "We look like a group of concerned meerkats staring at giant snake."

"It's kinda hard to act happy when your sister is gone, and you don't know if you'll ever see her again," Nicky sighed.

"Well boys, we have to," Anne had now joined.

"Why?" Dicky turned his head back to his mom.

"Because if whoever's with Dawn sees us standing here, staring at that glade, they won't go in there."

The three boys sighed in unison.

"How do we stare at a glade, without making it obvious we're staring at a glade?"

Anne thought for a second.

"We don't stare at it. We look if we hear any cars coming, and leave the staring to Cassidy and Jonathan."

Cassidy and Jonathan were a few meters away, talking to a blonde woman. Their excuse for being there was that they were interviewing local residents about the safety around the place. The police car was hidden on a parking spot that wasn't visible when you first reached the gas station.

"What do we do if we see the car?"

Anne bit her lip at Nicky's question.

"We...," she looked down at the ground. "We tell Cassidy and Jonathan... and they'll tell us what to do."

The sound of a car coming in the distance was suddenly heard. All of the Harper's, and the police quickly glanced over at the road. They were first able to see the vehicle when it was about fifteen meters away, due to trees covering their view. A silver car pulled up into the gas station parking lot. The registration plate read 'LXT 442'.

They all sighed and looked down at the ground as a family with two kids stepped out of the car to get gas. The same thing had happened with the last ten to fifteen cars driving by. They had all gotten hopeful, then a wrong-colored car with a random registration plate number had driven by. Tom and Anne were losing their hope, the boys were getting impatient, and the police worried if they were even in the right place... when it happened.

A distant car noise reached their ears again. The same hopeful feeling that they had gotten each time filled them as they discreetly looked over at the road. That feeling was hastily replaced though. Adrenaline spread through their bodies, and their heart rates went crazy as a red car took a turn into the hidden glade. The registration plate had three simple letters, and three just as normal numbers.

_DAH 207._

* * *

**Hello, I'm back from another lack of inspiration!**

**I really need to stop throwing myself into stories, without even knowing where to continue and end them, haha.**

**Well, hope you liked this chapter. The next one will probably be out tomorrow, because I actually _know_ what to write.**

**See ya tomorrow!**


	11. Home Again

"What do we do?" Nicky was hyperventilating.

"We're gonna let him go into the store, then take action," Cassidy had a steady voice, but you could hear her breath speeding up a bit.

A tall man with short brown hair, and all black clothing stepped out from the glade. He walked over the road in a sloppy style with his hands in his pockets, without even checking if any cars were coming.

The five Harper's quickly started acting as if they were just in the middle of their road trip, and began rambling about where they were going next. Although they tried their hardest to seem happy, it was pretty obvious how nervous they were.

As soon as the man looked up, he noticed the police. All of a sudden, he changed. He straightened his back, slightly tilted his head upwards. The sloppy walking style was completely gone.

"Wait here, Harpers," Cassidy turned around, and sprinted into the store. She hurried over to the counter, and whispered:

"Any second now a man will walk into the store. Keep him in here for as _long as you can._"

The man seemed a little confused, and nervous, but nodded. Then he came in. Still walking in the straight back, formal style. This was their chance. Jonathan gestured for the Harper's to follow him. They ran across the parking lot, and over the road. No cars were in sight anyway, so it was safe.

Together in a little group, they entered the glade. It wasn't a big glade. Not bigger than the boys bedroom in the Harper house. Tight-growing trees surrounded it, making it almost impossible to see from the outside. Cassidy and Jonathan knew it existed from before, since a murder had been reported there several years ago. There was only one thing in the glade, and it was the red car. Jonathan started to slowly approach it, while showing the Harpers that they should stay put. At a first look, the car looked empty. There was no one in the driver's seat, and the backseat looked empty as an abandoned house. Slowly, Jonathan walked around the car. Step by step, inspecting the windows, and watching every detail on the car. He suddenly stopped on the right side of the car, by the backseat window.

"She's here."

The other five members of the Harper family had never felt so happy in their lives. With butterflies filling their stomachs, they ran over to where Jonathan stood. And very well, Dawn was in there, but she looked horrible.

She was asleep on the floor of the car, supposedly knocked out. Bruises covered her face, and the parts of her body which were visible through the torn clothes. She was also thinner than her family had ever seen her, revealing she had probably not been fed a lot. Her hair looked like a birds nest, with a couple of small twigs, and dirt in it. It even looked a little greasy. During the month she had been gone, her hair had probably never been brushed, and clearly not washed.

Jonathan pulled out some tool from his pocket, and smashed the front seat window. Dawn flinched, and sat bolt right up on the floor. She first looked confused when she saw them all outside.

The whole family's eyes started watering from happiness as Dawn rubbed her eyes in disbelief. She looked shocked when she looked up again, and everyone was still there. Now her eyes were shiny with tears as well. She mouthed "_Oh my gosh_" as she slowly got up on her feet. The simple action seemed very hard for her, as her hip cracked and she looked like she was in pain.

"You... you got my notes," Dawn's voice was unbelievably hoarse, and she coughed after saying it.

The other members of the Harper family nodded. Then Cassidy entered the glade, looking concerned.

"Harpers, we need to hurry," her tone revealed what she said was true.

Jonathan immediately took action, and nodded to Dawn. She understood his gesture, and laboriously climbed into the front seat. From there, she unlocked the passenger seat door, and stepped out.

"He's out of the gas station," Cassidy had just checked through the opening of the glade.

In a couple of seconds, Anne lifted Dawn of her sore legs, and carried her over to a nearby bush. Tom, Nicky, Ricky and Dicky followed them, and got as comfortable as they could get in the bush situation.

Cassidy and Jonathan walked over and hid behind the car. The only thing that would seem suspicious with the place now, was the broken window. But by the time the man would have noticed that, he would already be arrested.

After they had been hiding for about twenty seconds, the man walked into the glade, while looking behind him. To any random person, he would just seem like a man going to maybe take a walk in the forest. To the Harpers and police, he was fleeing, making sure no one saw him. He walked up to the car, not noticing the broken window. Then Cassidy and Jonathan jumped out from their hiding spots. Cassidy had pulled out her gun, and she pointed it right at him.

"Freeze!"

The man did just that, but not on command, more in shock. His head immediately flew in the direction of the backseat. He noticed Dawn's absence.

"You, sir... are arrested," Jonathan got in behind the man, and put his hands in handcuffs.

It was over. Dawn was back. The man was arrested, and things could go back to normal. But things still weren't clear...

* * *

**This chapter was supposed to be published two days ago. But two days ago I was lazy and played the Sims 4 instead.**

**Then yesterday I actually wrote half this chapter, but then internet at home disappeared. It's still not back.**

**Now, I'm writing this in school, on my lunch break. I don't know when the last chapter will be published, since I don't know when internet will return.**

**Sorry you had to wait, but hope you liked the chapter!**


	12. C Four

**It turned out that internet returned later the same day I wrote chapter 11, so here's the final chapter for you!**

* * *

Dawn had _never_ been so happy to see the sage colored Harper house. She felt indescribable happiness spread through her as she walked up the stone path.

Every single other time she had done it, she had thought nothing of it, but now it had been a month since she last set foot on the yard. Step by step she walked up onto the porch, and watched Tom unlock the door.

She rushed into the living room before everyone else. The signature Harper house smell hit her. She took a deep breath of the fragrance of pancakes and yogurt. Of course there was also a slight hint of unwashed shirts and sweat, but hey, what could you expect in a six-person house?

Dawn wanted to just run up to her room, crash on her bed, and have the first good night of sleep in a month. But Cassidy and Jonathan needed to know everything about what ha happened over the last thirty days. So did her family, but it was more important for the police, so they could solve the case completely, and charge the kidnapper for all the right reasons.

Cassidy and Jonathan went over and sat down on the couch. Tom and Anne followed and placed themselves on the other end of it, while Nicky stood behind, resting his arms on the backrest. Ricky sat down in an armchair, and Dicky on the floor in front of him.

Preparing herself for the long explanation awaiting, Dawn sat down in the other armchair, closest to the kitchen.

There was a few seconds of silence, when Dawn just looked around at all the familiar things in the room, that she hadn't seen in a long time.

Cassidy broke the silence by clearing her throat.

"So... Where do we start?"

Dawn felt everyone's eyes falling on her like cheap perfume on girls at school.

"Let's start with why you ran away," Jonathan had taken out a notebook and a pen, ready to write down what she said.

Dawn immediately looked down at her feet. Her hands were fingering the pink glitter pen - The only thing she had left of the things she brought with her.

"Well... I was just so mad at myself... I just didn't feel like talking to, or _seeing_ anyone."

She nervously looked up, afraid to see the others' reactions. But they weren't mad, annoyed, or confused. She let her head go up all the way, now that most of the anxiety was gone.

"Now... You know the driver who stopped and asked you if you were okay? Why did you run into the forest?" Jonathan asked while scribbling down what Dawn had said.

"I wasn't ready to go back yet, like it had only been a few hours. I thought I was just going to hide in the forest until the road cleared up. But then...," Dawn looked down again.

"Then what?" Anne felt herself getting worried.

Dawn looked up, eyes gleaming.

"Then I met him."

Everyone gave each other a worried look as Dawn's eyes fell down onto her feet again.

"I-... I was just so... He told me that he could help me, so I went with him."

"What was up with the notes?" Ricky leaned forward in the chair.

Dicky did the same, but on the floor, so he nearly fell forward.

"Yeah. Why didn't you just write the letters?"

"Or even better, the whole message on one note."

"Yeah, like Nicky said. No need to complicate it," Dicky sounded like it was the most obvious thing ever.

"No. I couldn't. C Four watched my every move," Dawn shook her head. "C Four's the guy... who kidnapped me."

She explained the situation, as some of the others looked a little confused. But she couldn't help but hesitate on saying "_kidnapped me_".

"He wouldn't let me send any type of rescue note with a direct meaning, so I had to come up with a code," she smiled. "I knew you would crack it."

Jonathan wrote a few sentences in the notebook, and Cassidy continued the questioning.

"Could you please explain _exactly_ what he did to you during this whole month."

Dawn slowly nodded, while biting her lips. She took a deep breath.

"Well... We mostly just drove around in his car. He never said anything to me, except for his code name, and where we were going next. When we got to that place, he would go up to a random house, and take me with him. He would threaten whoever opened the door, by saying he would cut my throat open with a knife he carried with him. If they didn't give him money of course. People of course recognized me from the posters and notifications, so he would add to the threat that if they called the police, he would come back to the house and kill them instead"

Dawn took a quick pause, because of her sobbing getting more intense.

"We went around to almost twenty persons, just getting money. And he said he wouldn't do anything to me, but if I did just anything just a tiny bit wrong, he would hit me, or cut me with his knife."

Everyone else's eyes were tearing up, and their facial expressions got more and more horrified and shocked as she went on.

Jonathan closed the notebook.

"We have a lot to charge him for."

* * *

For the first time in a month Dawn was clean, comfortable, and home. Her clothes were for once not ripped, her hair was brushed, and she had showered, slept, ate and all the things she barely did while being with 'C Four'.

The police had found out the code name stood for Collin the fourth. He was from a gang of kidnappers, who kidnapped people and used the threatening routine for money. After about thirty visits with each person, they would slit their throats. Dawn just got away in time. The 'four' in C Four's code name stood for his position. He was the fourth most powerful person.

But now he was facing jail time. A long, long, long time in prison was in front of him.

Dawn had definitely changed a bit for the worse. She hated being in the presence of a knife, and would fidget as soon as someone brought a sharp one out. She even seemed uncomfortable holding the food knife while eating.

The knives weren't the only sensitive thing though. If someone did any type of vivid hand gesture near her face or any part of her body, she would flinch, and put her hand up as protection. A second later she would take it down, realizing they weren't going to hit her. It was obvious her time with C Four had damaged her people sense badly. Therefore Tom and Anne decided to take her to therapy. Thrice a week.

Dawn started to slowly recover, and become her normal safe. The Icky's especially were getting impatient, but slow and steady wins the race, you know.

The most important thing though wasn't her recovery. It was that she was back, safe and sound with her mom, dad and brothers. They were all happier than they had been in a _looooong_ time

* * *

**That was the end of Quaddle of Three!**

**Now I can tell you a secret that I have been _so_ impatient to share with you.**

**Remember the registration plate: DAH 207?**

**That wasn't just some random letters and numbers I came up with, no no. It was another secret code! Already when I first mentioned the car, you could have figured out what had happened to Dawn. But I doubt it, since it was kind of complicated.**

**The letters: DAH. Easy. Dawn's initials. Dawn Abigail Harper.**

**The numbers: 207. Not as easy. I had to do a little research to decide them. 207 is the police code for a kidnapping.**

**DAH 207 = Dawn Abigail Harper - kidnapped ;)**

**Now you just have to wait until Saturday (probably), for my next story.**

**That will be a collection of scary oneshots.**

**Hope you liked Quaddle of Three, see ya in the oneshot collection!**


	13. Let's Talk

**Here's the Let's Talk for Quaddle of Three; AKA the story I'm the most excited to talk about.**

* * *

First off, as you already know by now, is the inspiration behind the story.

I came up with this story while listening to a podcast. My favorite Swedish podcast; Spöktimmen (The Ghost Hour). The two hosts talked about the unsolved disappearance of Asha Degree. I am very highly interested in unsolved mysteries about true crime and disappearances, so this was very interesting to me. In fact it gave me an idea for a whole new NRDD story. And there _Quaddle of Three _was born.

If you ask me, I will say that's a pretty good name. One of my two favorite titles of my stories (only tied with _Lights off, Door closed_). So most of the story is inspired by the Asha Degree case. To be more exact, these things;

1: Dawn loses a sports game, and blames it on herself (In Asha's case, she lost a basketball game because she hurt her leg. She was one of the best players in the the team, and so she blamed them losing on herself, as she could not help them win. In Dawn's case, she has a really important part of a soccer game; the goalie. She's super tired, and lets in a lot of goals)

2: Ricky hearing noise in Dawn's room, but ignoring it (Asha's brother woke up in the middle of the night, and heard Asha doing something. He thought nothing of it, and went back to sleep. Just like Ricky did with Dawn in this story)

3: Dawn gets seen walking up a highway, and when a driver asks if she needs help, she runs into the forest (This is actually _exactly _what happened to Asha. She walked up a highway, a driver asked if she was okay, she flinched and ran away)

I came up with some things though. These things;

1: The notes (This was a perfect way for Dawn to communicate with them, so I added it in)

2: The code on the notes (She couldn't write her location and things straight onto the paper, since her kidnapper kept close watch on her. So she used a code, which I will explain later)

3: Dawn's diary (They read Dawn's diary, and find out she did in fact run away. But as we learn later, she got kidnapped along the way)

**The codes**

1: The code on the notes

As you know, the notes said the following.

_5th of March, 6th of October, 3rd of July, 2nd of April_.

At first you might just see them as random dates that have no meaning at all (except some random people's birthdays I guess). But no, no, no, they're _not _dates. As seen in her diary, Dawn writes dates differently. She would have written the dates on the notes like this;

_March 5th, October 6th, July 3rd, April_ 2nd.

She wrote the notes the way she did because they were a code, obviously. The months are just words, and the numbers are the letter number in the word. For example, the fifth letter in March is H, and as you know, the notes spelled out HELP.

Now how do I know this code? Well, the answer to that is; _I don't know_. I learned it somewhere, sometime a couple of years ago, and I've never forgotten it. It would be cool to say that I came up with it on my own to write this story, but I'm not gonna lie to you. I didn't come up with it, I just remembered it.

2: The license plate on the car (not a part of the story, just an Easter egg)

_This_ code, on the other hand, I _did _come up with on my own!

DAH 207

It was a way to tell that Dawn in fact _was _kidnapped. The letters on the license plate, DAH, are Dawn's initials, Dawn Abigail Harper. The numbers, 207, is the police code for a kidnapping.

Dawn Abigail Harper, Kidnapped.

Yes, it did take me twenty minutes to come up with that, and I did do research on police codes. 'Cause why in the world would I just know the police code for kidnapping in the back of my head?

**Explain That Chapter**

_The Lost Soccer Game  
_Chapter Summary \- The Buffalo's lose the season's most important game, and Dawn blames it on herself.

This chapter was kind of just a warm-up for the real story, and a reason for Dawn's disappearance. So not really anything to talk about

_The Disappearance  
_Chapter Summary \- The morning after the game, the Harper's can't find Dawn anywhere. Neither can the entire neighborhood. Dawn's clothes and backpack are also missing.

Dawn's gone, oh no! I just kinda had a lot of fun writing this chapter, so it's a little goofy.

_Highway 119  
_Chapter Summary \- Two policemen come and tell the Harper's that Dawn's been seen walking up Highway 119 by multiple drivers. One saw her run into the forest.

Heavily based on the disappearance of Asha Degree. This chapter is just kind of how the family's taking it.

_Pink Pen on Green Paper  
_Chapter Summary \- After school and work, the family goes to the forest at Highway 119 to search for Dawn. Instead, they find a weird note.

The first note, woo! Don't really know what to write hehe.

_After Weeks of Nothing  
_Chapter Summary \- Weeks have gone by, and nothing has happened. But then the Harper boys find, and read Dawn's diary, which has some groundbreaking secrets...

Dun Dun DUUUUN, she did just run away! Or did she? Then they also find the backpack floating in a river, which was kinda based on Asha. Only that Asha's backpack was found in a plastic bag, in a plastic bag, in a hole. So hers was a little weirder, but who cares?

_DAH 207  
_Chapter Summary \- While walking home from school, Nicky, Ricky and Dicky find another note. The police have gotten a report about a car with the license plate DAH 207.

I've never been on a school bus.

_2nd on the 4th  
_Chapter Summary -While looking through the Boulder City Forestry, they find the 4th and final note from Dawn.

As I wrote in the chapter, I was at a lack of inspiration, but who cares? When I don't know what to write, I just write and see what happens. That was what happened during the hide and seek chapter of The Super Secret.

_The Notes  
_Chapter Summary \- Right when it all seems hopeless, Ricky figures out the notes. They're a code, and together, the boys crack it and see Dawn's message.

I had this chapter/scene/thing in mind when I started writing this story. I even knew the dialogue leading up to the cracking.

_Esther's Discovery  
_Chapter Summary \- A man walking his dog finds some more notes, and after using the code, they get the location Point of Pines Drive.

A random chapter about a random dog named Esther finding notes in the park. Could be happier than the chapter really is.

_The Point of Pines Peak  
_Chapter Summary \- The group goes to the Point of Pines Drive, where they set up a plan to catch the kidnapper.

HollyHook said in a review that it would have been better if Dicky felt like he would throw up, but in the situation, it felt more to character on Nicky. But otherwise, Holly, I'll always write it as Dicky throwing up if anyone needs to do that, for your sake.

_Back Home  
_Chapter Summary \- Everything goes to plan, and the family and police rescue Dawn.

Yaaaay, Dawn's back!

_C Four's Threats  
_Chapter Summary \- Dawn explains exactly what has happened in the course of the last month, and her kidnapper's now facing jail time.

And that just wraps this entire thing up happily. Yay.

**Thanks for reading this story!**

Thanks to everyone who's read this! You're amazing, and now when I'm writing this (3 months since I finished the story), it is _really _close to 1000 views!

Big thanks to HollyHook and Rickzie Harpell for favoriting this story!

Big thanks to HollyHook and Demigod of Magic for following this story!

And the biggest and best thanks of all to Torigagged and HollyHook for reviewing! Especially HollyHook of courseeeee!


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